Institute for Biblical & Scientific Studies

The Bible:
Genesis 3

Jewish Writers

Josephus

According to Josephus in the Garden of Eden At that epoch all the
creatures spoke a common tongue (Jewish Antiquities, I .41).
This seems to be taken from the Book of Jubilees (3:28, Also Philo,
De opif.mudi 55:156). As far as Adam and Eves punishment is
concerned, Josephus says, God said, Nay, I had decreed for you
to live a life of bliss, unmolested by all ill, with no care to fret your
souls; all things that contribute to enjoyment and pleasure were, through
my providence, to spring up for you spontaneously, without toil or distress
of yours; blessed with these gifts, old age would not soon have overtaken
you and your life would have been long (JA. I:46). Josephus does not
say that they will live forever, but for a long time, maybe because only
God can live forever.

Book of Jubilees

The Book of Jubilees states, In the first week Adam was created and
also the rib, his wife. And in the second week he showed her to him. And
therefore the commandment was given to observe seven days, for a male, but
for a female twice seven days in their impurity. And after forty days were
completed for Adam in the land where he was created, we brought him into
the garden of Eden so that he might work it and guard it. And on the eightieth
day his wife was also brought in .And during the first week of the
first Jubilee Adam and his wife had been in the garden of Eden for seven
years tilling and guarding it (Book of Jubilees 3:8-13).

On the day when Adam went out from the garden of Eden .the mouth
of all the beasts and cattle and birds and whatever walked or moved was
stopped from speaking because all of them used to speak with one another
with one speech and one language. The language that the animals spoke seems
to be Hebrew, the tongue of creation (Book of Jubilees
12:26).

Adam was the first to be buried in the earth. The Book of Jubilees records,
And he (Adam) was the first who was buried in the earth. And he lacked
seventy years from one thousand years, for a thousand years are like one
day in the testimony of heaven and therefore it was written concerning the
tree of knowledge, In the day you eat from it you will die.
Therefore he did not complete the years of this day because he died in it
(Book of Jubilees, 4:29-30, also 11QJub 2).

Concerning Noahs flood, it states, And because of him (Enoch)
none of the water of the Flood came upon the whole land of Eden, for he
was put there for a sign and so that he might bear witness against all the
children of men so that he might relate all of the deeds of the generations
until the day of judgment (Book of Jubilees, 4:24). The Book
of Jubilees goes on to say, And all of the water stayed upon the
surface of the earth five months, one hundred and fifty days. And the ark
went and rested on the top of Lubar, one of the mountains of Ararat. And
in the fourth month the springs of the deep were closed and the floodgates
of heaven were held shut. And on the new moon of the seventh month, all
of the mouths of the deeps of the earth were opened. And the water began
to go down into the depths below (Book of Jubilees, 5:27-29).

Philo

Why did not Adam and Eve immediately die? Philo reasons, Surely that
death is of two kinds; the one being the death of the man, the other the
peculiar death of the soul-now the death of the man is the separation of
his soul from his body, but the death of the soul is the destruction of
virtue and the admission of vice; and consequently God calls that not merely
to die but to die the death; showing that he is
speaking not of common death, but of that peculiar and especial death which
is the death of the soul, buried in its passions and in all kinds of evil
(Allegorical Interpretation I. 105-106). Philo concludes, When,
therefore, God says, to die the death, you must remark that
he is speaking of that death which is inflicted as punishment, and not of
that which exists by the original ordinance of nature. The natural
death is that one by which the soul is separated from the body (Allegorical
Interpretation I. 107).

Genesis Rabbah

XX:IV.3.C
but a snake produces offspring only after seven years, and an adder
in seventy years (GR p.216).

XX :V
1.B When the Holy One, blessed be he, said to him, Upon your
belly you shall go, the ministering angels came down and cut off his
hands and feet. His roar went forth from one end of the world to the other
(GR, p.217).
5.B I made you walk upright like a man, but you did not want it: Upon
your belly you shall go (GR, p.218).
5.D. You wanted to kill man and marry his wife (IBID).
3.B. Said R. Hilpai, It is not any sort of dirt, but the snake
digs down until it reaches rock or virgin soil, and he takes up the sinews
of the earth and eats (GR, p.217).

XX:VIII2.A. And you ate of the tree (Gen3:17). [The reference
to eating of the tree, not the fruit,] supports the view of R. Abba of Acre,
that it was an etrog-tree [which produces wood that can be eaten]
(GR, 222).

XX.X
7.A. You are dust and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:19).
7.B. R. Simeon b. Yohai said, This is evidence in the Torah for the
resurrection of the dead. What it says is not, For you are dust and
to dust you will go, but rather you shall return [Freedman,
p.169 n.8: which he interprets you shall go to the dust yet shall
return , at the resurrection] (GR, 225).

Talmud

The Talmud teaches the pre-existence of souls. In the seventh
heaven, Araboth, are stored the spirits and souls which have still
to be created (Chag. 12b), i.e. the unborn souls which have yet to
be united to bodies. There was a common belief that the Messianic era will
not dawn until all these unborn souls have had their term of existence on
earth. The son of David (i.e. the Messiah) will not come until all
the souls in the Guph come to an end (Jeb. 62a), the Guph
being the celestial store-house where these souls await their time to inhabit
a human body (Everymans Talmud by A. Cohen, New York:
Schocken, 1975, p.78).

The soul is the spiritual force within man which raises him above
an animal existence, inspires him with ideals, and propts him to choose
the good and reject the evil (IBID). The soul was seen as pure. In
Rabbinic literature every human being has two urges or impulses, one good
and the other evil (Ber. 61a). If the evil impulse dominates the person
is called wicked. If the good impulse dominates than the person is called
righteous. While man is born with an evil impulse, the good impulse does
not manifest itself until the age of thirteen, the age of accountability,
when a boy becomes responsible for his actions (IBID. p. 89). Others saw
the evil impulse as a natural instinct that was misused since God only creates
good. The Torah was the antidote for the evil impulse. Man was not bound
to sin but could choose to do right or wrong. According to Josephus the
Pharisees championed free will (Antiq. XCIII. I.3). There was no attempt
to solve the problem of Gods foreknowledge and mans free will.
Every thing is forseen (by God), yet freedom of choice is given
(Aborth III.19; IBID. p.94).

The doctrine of original sin, that man inherits sin and guilt, was foreign
to Rabbis. He may be burdened by the consequences of the wrongdoings
of his forefathers; but no Rabbi of the Talmudic age would admit that any
human being committed a wrong for which he or she was not personally responsible.
Such an admission would have been at variance with the dogma of free will.
Many utterances can be adduced from the Talmud to prove that man is sinless
by nature (IBID. p.96).